Investor refund in jeopardy over government inertia

At least 61 of the smaller claimants have been repaid Rs1.24 million, while others have been running for repayment.

LAHORE: The Punjab government’s reluctance to go into litigation to retrieve a Rs2 billion property owned by the now-defunct Alliance Industrial and Commercial Cooperative Society (AICCS) is ruining the refund dreams of the claimants of 47 collapsed cooperative societies.

In all there are 109 people with claims of over Rs64.03 million. At least 61 of the smaller claimants have been repaid Rs1.24 million, while the others have been running from pillar to post for repayment, a senior PCBL official told The Express Tribune.

The ownership of the cooperative society’s key asset – currently held by a party which has no concern whatsoever with the Punjab Cooperatives Board for Liquidation (PCBL) – is in dispute over a controversial decision of a former PCBL chairman.

Securing the property, the official says, will not only enable the PCBL to repay the investors, it will also help the Punjab government tide over some of its financial woes.

The people in possession of the property are currently running a fitness club — with a membership of over 1,000 — on the premises.

Sources said that the chief minister’s secretary Syed Tauqeer Ahmed is pushing the PCBL hard to avoid any change in the property’s status quo.

In April 1989, the Christian Educational Endowment Trust (CEET) unlawfully sold the disputed 50-kanal property in Block E-I of Gulberg-III to the Services Cooperative Credit Corporation (SCCCL) Ltd for Rs15 million. The corporation was owned by Zulfiqar Awan. Two months later, the SCCCL sold the same property to the AICCS, owned by Manzoor Warriach, for Rs18.5 million.

When cooperative finance corporations in the province declared themselves bankrupt in 1991 the provincial government introduced the Punjab Undesirable Cooperative Societies Act, empowering the PCBL to act as a liquidator and sell all confiscated properties so that people affected by a major financial scam could get their money back.

However, the properties were seized by interest groups representing the land mafia.

In July 1991, Samna Pvt, a firm owned by Khawaja Umar Farooq, claimed that it had paid Rs34.3 million to AICCS for a 23-kanal plot, while another firm HF, also owned by Umar Farooq, bought another piece of land measuring 27 kanals for Rs40.7 million.

In December 1993, the PCBL board turned down a request by Umar Farooq for a no-objection certificate on the land. He said that he had nominated SCCCL in the sales deed and the property had been transferred to his corporation as a “benami” asset.

He argued that AICCS, and subsequently the PCBL as its liquidator, had no right to the property. The PCBL maintained that after the AICCS ceased to function, all its assets and liabilities stood vested with the PCBL as its liquidator for the payment of compensation to account holders of the defunct entity.

On January 27, 2001, the then PCBL chairman, after ascertaining facts and listing viewpoints of various applicants, said that the payment of money by the applicant could not be established because the amount was not entered in any of the company’s cash books.

He pointed out that since Umar Farooq had failed to produce any credible evidence of payment, the sales transaction appeared to be fictitious and fraudulent. Umar Farooq was seen as illegally occupying and holding the land without any authority.

Upholding a PCBL notice issued in April 2000, he directed the PCBL to immediately repossess the land. The board had sealed the land under the same notice for auction.

The PCBL put up the land for auction to repay the claims of victim investors, which was stayed by a co-operative judge. The judge remanded the case for a decision.

Later, Umar Farooq filed an appeal against the PCBL chairman’s decision and the case was once again remanded to the new chairman in 2006.

Brig (retd) Farooq Maan, who served as PCBL chief between 2003 and 2008, issued an NOC to Samna and HF, authorising them to possess the land and operate business upon it, an application submitted by Waseem Manzoor alleged.

Following the decision, the then additional secretary for property at PCBL issued an NOC to Samna and HF Corporation to operate business on the land.

In August this year, Waseem Manzoor again challenged the former PCBL chairman’s decision under Section 12/2 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

The board, comprising four senior officials, deemed the application fit for hearing and sent the case to the judicial officer of the PCBL for adjudication.

The judicial officer summoned both parties for hearing, another PCBL official said requesting anonymity.

Umar Farooq told this correspondent if the land was PCBL’s property, it should take its possession. He said: “We are occupying the land after establishing ownership rights at the proper platform.” Their ownership has been challenged at the level of the judicial officer of PCBL.

Khwaja Nadeem, the director of the fitness club, said the property belonged to Samna and HF and “we are the legal occupants”.

Rejecting reports about his active role in the case, the chief minister’s secretary said that because PCBL matters are of judicial and quasi-judicial nature, “we do not interfere”.

Nazar Muhammad Chohan, the current PCBL chairman, said Waseem Manzoor had challenged the NOC granted to the two firms named Samna and HF (Pvt) Ltd and the case was being heard by a judicial officer. “The PCBL will accept any decision taken by the judicial officer.”

The property was owned by a defunct corporation, and the PCBL had become liquidator of all assets of such corporations for compensating account holders under an act, he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 3^rd, 2010.